Labyrinth Facilitator Training

The goal of this Veriditas Labyrinth Facilitator Training is to prepare people to introduce others to the labyrinth in an articulate, professional, and effective way. The training addresses both meditative walking and ceremonial use. It is focused primarily on the Eleven Circuit Medieval Labyrinth but is inclusive of all forms.

Walking the labyrinth is being embraced as a spiritual practice throughout the Western world mostly because of Veriditas trained facilitators. The Veriditas Facilitator Training, which began in 1997, remains the most rigorous and comprehensive training offered. Some people take this two-day course to deepen their knowledge of labyrinths. Others take it with the goal of becoming a Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator.

To date, Veriditas has trained more than 3,000 labyrinth facilitators—therapists, clergy, hospital administrators, parish teams, doctors, artists, and labyrinth enthusiasts—who are introducing the labyrinth to their communities. About 1,000 people are certified.

Why Become a Trained Facilitator?
Our experience has taught us that if a person does not have a satisfying first experience, they do not easily return to walk again. Over the years a body of knowledge about labyrinths, their history and how to use them effectively has developed. The labyrinth seems deceptively easy to introduce to others. However, common mistakes have begun to appear: presenting a 'right way' to walk a labyrinth or interrupting someone's experience due to the presenter's discomfort with emotion are just two examples. Benefit from Lauren Artress' extensive experience and knowledge, through 14 hours face to face that is a behind-the-scenes conversation about using these powerful archetypal patterns as blue prints for transformation.

Specific applications: as a path of prayer, in dream work, asking a question of discernment, and many more

How to "hold the space" before, during, and after the walk

Unusual experiences in the labyrinth

Various patterns to provide space between participants

How to interact with the media, which the labyrinth attracts

The business aspects of presenting the labyrinth: fees for your time, considering non-profit status, distributing literature, brochures, copyright concerns

About the Presenter

Lauren Artress is the Founder and Creative Director of Veriditas. She is the author of: Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool (Putnam/Riverhead Books, New York), The Sand Labyrinth Kit, (Tuttle Publishers) and The Sacred Path Companion: A Guide to Walking the Labyrinth to Heal and Transform (Riverhead, 2006).

Lauren is a priest of the Episcopal Church, and her home parish is Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, California. From 1986 to 1992, she served as Canon Pastor and then as Canon for Special Ministries until August 2004. In May of 2006, her rediscovery of the labyrinth was honored by Grace Cathedral and she was designated Honorary Canon, a lifetime title.

In 1991, while on a brief sabbatical, Lauren walked an informal taped labyrinth through the work of Jean Houston. The idea gestated for a few months and then she was compelled to go to Chartres Cathedral, where she moved the chairs and walked the medieval labyrinth. This courageous act has led to the rediscovery of the labyrinth. Lauren not only introduced the walking meditation back into the Christian tradition but also introduced the labyrinth back into Western culture. By December 1991, she had replicated the Medieval Eleven Circuit Labyrinth at Grace Cathedral beginning in canvas form. Due to the enormous response of people desiring to learn a walking meditation, the tapestry labyrinth was installed inside the Cathedral in 1994. The outdoor terrazzo labyrinth was installed in the Interfaith Meditation Garden in 1995. In 2007, Grace Cathedral installed a permanent limestone labyrinth in the floor to replace the tapestry labyrinth. Veriditas is storing the carpet until it can realize its vision of a retreat center where the tapestry labyrinth will once again have a home.

In 1995, Lauren created the non-profit Veriditas as a 501c3, with the initial vision of "peppering the planet with labyrinths". After successfully launching thousands of labyrinths in churches, hospitals, cathedrals, prisons, spas, community parks, hospices and other settings, a new mission for Veriditas emerged: To facilitate the transformation of the human spirit through offering the Labyrinth Experience.

Lauren travels worldwide offering workshops and lectures on the labyrinth, Hildegard of Bingen, Opening the Divine Imagination, Taking That Creative Leap: Navigating A Life Transition, and on other topics related to the spiritual journey and the mystical life. She creates large group experiences that nurture the connection between the human and divine such as Walking a Sacred Path held twice a year in Chartres Cathedral.

Lauren is a much sought after Keynote speaker, an Episcopal priest and licensed as a psychotherapist in the State of California. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Special Education from Ohio State University and a Master's of Education from Princeton Theological Seminary. She received her analytic training in Object Relations and Systems Theory at The Blanton-Peale Graduate Institute at The Institute of Religion and Health in New York City. Her Doctor of Ministry degree was granted in 1986 from Andover Newton Theological School in Boston Massachusetts in Pastoral Psychology.